Red Eye

I'm not referring to the airline flights - it's the evil looking bloody pupils that I'm referring to. I'm sure you've all had an otherwise great shot ruined by the malicious fiery dots that pretend to be eyes. (This topic also happened to be the one that I taught at a 5-minute audition for a Kaplan teaching job that I did earlier today... or rather, yesterday...)

First of all, how does it happen? Direct light from a flash shines into the eye, through the pupil, bounces off the blood-vessel-rich retina, and reflects back out toward the camera's lens. The film or digital sensor records this reemitted red light as the color of the pupil. Therefore, the devilish gaze. Are there any solutions at hand? Can the devil's work be stopped in the realm of photography?

Firstly, camera manufacturers have all introduced something called "Red Eye Reduction" flash. This is basically a set of pre-flashes that go off before the actual flash goes off with the pressing of the shutter button. The additional light before the shot tricks the brain into thinking that it is brighter than it really is. The eye's response is then to constrict the pupil. So, when these pre-flashes go off, the pupils shrink, letting less light from the flash into the eye and, more importantly, less reflected red light out.

Unfortunately, as the name reminds us, the use of pre-flashes only reduces the amount of red eye in our pictures. Some faint hints of red may still peek through, and sometimes it may not work at all. A solution that a lot of photographers use is to change the angle that the incident light (the light from the flash) comes in at. When the incoming light hits the retina at a larger angle, the reflected light doesn't bounce out of the eye towards the lens. (You can see this for yourself with an approximated diagram of the eye, the camera, and a light source that is far from the lens.) This technique can be accomplished in several different ways.

The easiest way is to move the flash further from the lens. You can either mount a taller speedlight unit to the camera or use a sync cord to remove the flash from the camera body altogether. Another way to change the angle is to use a speedlight that has an adjustable head. This allows you to bounced the light off a nearby surface, usually the ceiling or a reflector placed near the subject. If you don't want to change the angle that the flash is coming from, something to consider is the use of a diffuser. In this way, rays of light are much less likely to get into the eye and reflect directly out to hit the lens.

Now, I know all this information is helpful if you have a camera with a sync-cord port or a hot shoe for a speedlight, but if you're a point and shooter, you're probably wondering what you can do other than using the red eye reduction feature. Fortunately for the digital users, a lot of manufacturer's now package photo editting software with their cameras, software that often has tools to rid yourself of the gruesome twosome. Some programs now even have a one-click feature which uses an algorithm to identify faces and locate red spots that exist where the eyes are calculated to be. Whether automatic or manual, clicking red pixels away is a lot easier and simpler than drawing dots on a picture with a red-eye removal pen.

For the film shooters out there, this solution involves several more steps but is quite worth it for an otherwise great shot. You can have your negatives (or slides) scanned to CD at the photo-processing lab, or you can scan the prints at home with a flatbed scanner. Some scanners come with a negative/slide attachment so that you can scan those in your underwear as well. Once you have a digital file, you can use photo-editting software as described above. If you want to avoid using the software yourself, you can bring your negatives into a digital photo-processing lab that has comparable technology on their printer. The newest generation of digital printers have software that not only removes red eye but also balances the highlights and shadows of the picture for better contrast.

Now that you know the cause of red eye and how to fight back, go out there and kick some demon eyed butt!!